Local food is better for your health, better for the local economy and it simply tastes, well, better. When you see the Harvested Here certification, it means the food on your plate was grown or raised within 100
miles of Chattanooga.

More than 25 Chattanooga restaurants, most of them downtown, will offer delicious lessons in where the food you're eating comes from over the next eight days, July 12-19.

Harvested Here Restaurant Week began in 2011 as an awareness event to highlight local restaurants and farms and to encourage patrons to learn more about the source of the food they're eating when dining out.

During the week, each participating restaurant will offer a unique menu of the summer's best picks from fresh, local foods that are grown within 100 miles of Chattanooga.

Taylor Monen, owner of four local restaurants, says the event, part of an ongoing local-food movement, has made a difference in how customers react to menus.

"All of a sudden, our guests have a desire to know not only where their food is coming from but how it was made," Monen says in a news release. "They are challenging us, which is exactly what we want."

Mike and Taylor Monen own Taco Mamacita, Urban Stack, Community Pie and the newly opened Milk & Honey. All of their restaurants will be participating in Harvested Here Restaurant Week.

Farms and food artisans play a major role in the event as well. Many will increase their growing capacity of certain foods that restaurants will be buying for the event. Tomatoes, herbs, greens and berries are in season for July and will be peaking on menus during the event week.

"It's truly a coordinated effort between restaurants and growers, further enhancing those relationships to promote the use and consumption of locally grown foods," says Jeff Pfitzer of Gaining Ground, which promotes consumption of local foods.